Grocery

Costa Mesa police tackled a man on the Santa Ana Country Club golf course after authorities say he nearly ran over a police officer and crashed a car through a fence into the country club while fleeing the scene of a suspected drug deal in a grocery store parking lot on Friday night. Police shot a second man involved in the incident with a Taser gun after he fled the parking lot on foot. Law enforcement officials now believe that the men were involved in an identity-theft scheme involving stolen bank account information, said Costa Mesa Police Lt. Clay Epperson.

After 37 years of service at the grocery check stand, Linda Coughlin started celebrating her long-anticipated retirement Friday. Early-bird shoppers will surely be disappointed big time when they learn that she won't be there to greet them anymore. Linda has been a dedicated employee of the Pavilions on Bayside Drive in Newport Beach. Diligently commuting from her home in San Clemente, rain or shine, she has arrived bright and early to open the store, and always with a cheerful smile.

Residents of Orange County will soon be able to order their eggs and milk while shopping for electronics or books. Amazon has recently expanded its grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh, to a few cities in the county, including Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Irvine, according to company representative Nell Rona. Residents can check fresh.amazon.com to see if they are within the coverage area. The program is an expansion of Amazon Prime, an annual-fee-based membership service, and will offer the same perks, such as free two-day shipping and video streaming.

Alicia Robinson Employees at the Newport Coast Pavilions store were back at work on Monday, packing orders for delivery to customers who have had to do their own shopping for the past five months. The store resumed delivery service, which was a casualty of the five-month grocery workers' strike set off by a contract dispute with grocery chains. The Pavilions store in Newport Coast is one of 23 Safeway-owned Southern California stores that resumed deliveries on Monday.

Our Newport-Mesa community has many markets affected directly or indirectly by the grocery strike. The letters to the editors sections have overflowed for weeks. This strike has generated a tempest in a corner coffee-pot. However, let's count the blessings: 1. An incentive to go to many different stores and try new products. 2. An opportunity to meet new people and friendly employees. 3. Shop calmly and quietly without being crowded or run over by carts.

They're common sights around any town — abandoned in shopping carts, clogging gutters, strewn by the breeze across parks and front lawns. For defenders of the environment, plastic grocery bags have long been a source of agony and irritation. Starting this month, though, the state of California is taking action to reign them in. An assembly bill that took effect on July 1 has mandated that a number of grocery stores adopt in-store recycling programs, with collection bins for used bags and reusable bags for sale to customers.

Attention grocery shoppers: It is now safe to go back to the stores. That's right, the long and bitter and protracted and pick-your-own-adjective strike and lockout between the grocery employee unions and Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons supermarkets has headed for the checkout line. For some, this comes as great news. For those in search of groceries, the dilemma of either crossing the picket line and offending the pickets or having to drive miles out of your way to pick up milk, butter and eggs for the family is over.

Jennifer Kho MESA VERDE -- About 1,000 business owners, employees and customers have signed a petition to try to persuade Trader Joe's Co. to open another store in Costa Mesa. The petitioners want the new store to open in a shopping center at Harbor Boulevard and Baker Street where Save Max was, said Jody Reese, owner of My Kind'a Beach Tanning Salon, who has been circulating the petitions. "We're trying to get something here that would generate business for the whole center, not just the individual store," said Larry Ziemke, manager at King's Copies, another store gathering petition signatures.

Don't judge striking grocery workers so hastily I am saddened and frustrated by the constant picket-bashing I see submitted by the readers. Saddened, because of the public's lack of compassion toward these workers. I hear of, and have been witness to, people going out of their way to show their disgust and disrespect for hard-working employees of multimillion-dollar corporations, who are trying to maintain their way of life and their financial security.

After 37 years of service at the grocery check stand, Linda Coughlin started celebrating her long-anticipated retirement Friday. Early-bird shoppers will surely be disappointed big time when they learn that she won't be there to greet them anymore. Linda has been a dedicated employee of the Pavilions on Bayside Drive in Newport Beach. Diligently commuting from her home in San Clemente, rain or shine, she has arrived bright and early to open the store, and always with a cheerful smile.

Residents of Orange County will soon be able to order their eggs and milk while shopping for electronics or books. Amazon has recently expanded its grocery delivery service, Amazon Fresh, to a few cities in the county, including Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and Irvine, according to company representative Nell Rona. Residents can check fresh.amazon.com to see if they are within the coverage area. The program is an expansion of Amazon Prime, an annual-fee-based membership service, and will offer the same perks, such as free two-day shipping and video streaming.

Grocery shopping is usually thought of as a chore, certainly not something that is combined with dinner and drinks. Whole Foods Market, known for natural and organic products, aims to change this stodgy attitude with the Sept. 19 opening of its Fashion Island location. The 32,000-square-foot store features a full-service restaurant, complete bar and teahouse. To take it a step further, Whole Foods Fashion Island also has an outdoor lounge area with fire pits, valet and car-side drop-off service.

An Irvine woman was arrested Thursday after she refused to leave the property in front of a Costa Mesa grocery store, where she was collecting signatures in hopes of placing a medical marijuana dispensary referendum on November's ballot. Deborah Tharp, 39, was arrested on suspicion of obstructing police and trespassing for refusing to leave the Mother's Market & Kitchen property on Newport Boulevard. She posted bail from Orange County Jail on Friday, but was not immediately available for comment.

Irvine police and the FBI are searching for a Newport Beach man suspected of robbing the US Bank inside a Pavilions Market in Irvine on Wednesday. According to authorities, a male suspect entered Pavilions, 3901 Portola Pkwy., and handed the teller a note asking for money. He did not speak, and there was no visible weapon. He fled the scene with an undisclosed amount of cash. Shortly after photos of the suspect were released, authorities received calls that led them to a suspect, Matthew David Lewis.

COSTA MESA — A line of about 50 customers waited Wednesday for the grand opening of the first Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market in Costa Mesa. The crowd streamed in when the supermarket's doors opened a little past 10 a.m. The new store, whose sales space occupies about 10,000 square feet at Newport and Harbor boulevards, will feature the same low prices and community-centric service the brand is known for, said store Manager Mark Spencer. "I can guarantee the best customer service in town," said Spencer, who has more than 25 years experience working in grocery stores, adding that he was very proud of the new team.

Editor’s note: This is the third of a three-part series on how the recession is affecting the Newport-Mesa area. 8 a.m. Bob Jordan got in his company van, set a single cup of water in a cup holder to quench his thirst, and headed off on the route that he’s taken nearly every Monday for the last 12 years. The van, one of two owned by the Westside nonprofit Share Our Selves, maneuvered its way out of the cramped parking lot on Superior Avenue, inching around parked cars and families who had come for their daily needs.

Undeterred by a sizable police search and police helicopter hovering overhead, authorities said a Rancho Cucamonga man doubled down on his luck Monday by robbing a bank only minutes after stealing from a nearby restaurant. Police arrested Kenneth Wayne Bennett, 46, about 2 p.m. Monday outside a Costa Mesa Albertsons store on suspicion that he robbed the Downey Savings branch inside, and less than 30 minutes earlier had stolen a bottle of liquor and a cash register from Newport Rib Co. down the street.

Costa Mesa police tackled a man on the Santa Ana Country Club golf course after authorities say he nearly ran over a police officer and crashed a car through a fence into the country club while fleeing the scene of a suspected drug deal in a grocery store parking lot on Friday night. Police shot a second man involved in the incident with a Taser gun after he fled the parking lot on foot. Law enforcement officials now believe that the men were involved in an identity-theft scheme involving stolen bank account information, said Costa Mesa Police Lt. Clay Epperson.

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